Mesh Centrino PCI-X CA

The Mesh Centrino PCI-X CA uses the latest Centrino technology from Intel to equip the notebook with reasonable performance and strong battery life.

At the centre of the PCI-X CA is a Pentium M running at 1.8GHz with 512Mb of memory. This mobile processor is faster than its clock speed suggests, especially when compared to Pentium 4 processors, but unfortunately the memory is shared with the onboard graphics.

Losing some of the memory does harm the performance in both 3D games and office work, but not to a noticeable degree with the latter. Gaming enthusiasts should look elsewhere, however.

General performance was good, if not outstanding, but this was more than made up for by the battery performance at an excellent result of just over four hours. Of course, if you're performing high-intensity tasks such as video-editing and DVD playing, the battery will diminish much quicker. But for general use, the battery life is a big advantage.

It comes with a recordable DVD drive that supports all writing standards apart from dual-layer discs and DVD-Ram. The 15.4in widescreen display is crisp and clear.

There are media buttons mounted on the front of the PCI-X CA, which is a useful touch if you use the notebook for playing music. Further shortcut keys are mounted above the keyboard for quickly accessing email, internet, the integrated Wi-Fi and instant messaging.

There's no shortage of sockets around the notebook either, with a total of five USB 2 ports, mini-FireWire and an S/PDIF socket.

The supplied software is enough to get you started but may become limiting in time. Microsoft Works 8 covers basic office duties and there is a copy of Asus PowerDirector DE for video editing. A taste of Microsoft Office can be experienced in the form of a 60-day trial.

The PCI-X CA comes with a three-year warranty, comprising one year parts and labour cover followed by two years labour only.

At just under 3kg the Mesh is quite big and heavy, but it's great value and a good proposition for students or those that can live without playing the latest games.

Also consider:
MV Sirius